GLOBAL WARMING.

The world religions challenge each other to repair the world.

Months after the December 1999 meeting of the Parliament of the World's Religions in Cape Town, South Africa, memories of this event ruminate within my Catholic consciousness:

* A Buddhist nun, garbed in flowing saffron robes, her head clean shaven, sits at a computer terminal in one of the exhibition booths reading and answering her e-mail.

* A small but dedicated group of Islamic protesters appear daily carrying placards. One sign asks, "What are Satanists doing here?"

* A Zulu tribesman, more naked than clothed, his cell phone hooked to his waist cord, dances in the noonday heat of the open-air amphitheater.

These colorful characters initially captured my attention, but those images soon gave way to the parliament's more substantial messages.

I was one of 7,500 participants who made the pilgrimage to South Africa, or "the beloved country," as one of its most famous writers, Alan Paton, calls it. South Africa experienced a miracle not so many years ago: the peaceful end of apartheid. Places where miracles happen often become pilgrimage sites for faithful people, and with this in mind, the Parliament of the World's Religions selected this renewed beloved country for its 1999 meeting.

The first Parliament of the World's Religions debuted in 1893 as part of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was a unique occasion, a first time for religions to gather on equal footing for dialogue. One historian describes it as "an ecumenical convocation before there was an ecumenical movement."

By the second parliament in 1993, ecumenism was a well-defined and respected activity of many religious and spiritual traditions. That session produced a framework for a global ethic drafted by the eminent Catholic theologian, Hans Kung, long discredited by his own church.

The first day of the 1999 parliament coincided with World AIDS Day, and the outdoor opening ceremonies in Company Gardens centered on this occasion. A portion of the AIDS quilt formed a dramatic backdrop for the speakers. One speaker, Ma Jaya Bhagavati, challenged the South . African government to make AIDS medicines more widely available: "Please let us not see the names of your babies on the AIDS quilt next year. Please let AZT come into this country and stop the murders."

Later, parliament participants, pilgrims all, processed through the streets of Cape Town. We created a richly textured tapestry of the world's populations. Under the blazing heat of the Southern Hemisphere's December sun, Sikhs walked alongside Christians; Hindus walked with Jews; African traditional-religious people marched next to American New Agers; Muslims, Buddhists, and Jains walked side by side.

I found myself, clad in distinctively American clothes--Docker pants, a sport shirt, and a Chicago Cubs cap--walking behind a Buddhist monk, between an elderly couple from Cape Town and a young freelance journalist working out of Perth, Australia, and in front of a few students from Lake Forest College in Illinois.

People who had brought water bottles and fruit freely shared along the way with those around them, a practical communion ritual. Many curious spectators, some protesters, and a few beggars lined the streets as we passed.

It is only since Vatican II that Catholics have stopped teaching that participation in anything but distinctively Catholic rituals is sinful. Father John Courtney Murray, S.J. was one of the first Americans to write passionately about the positive nature of religious pluralism. His colleague, Father Gustave Weigel, S.J., also promoted ecumenism. Their writings, considered revolutionary and, by some, heretical in the 1950s, are today the bedrock of ecumenism.

As the procession wound its way through the crowded streets of Cape Town, some people handed coins to beggars. At one intersection a gold-colored Rolls Royce waited for this procession to pass, a stark reminder of the incredible wealth of some South Africans.

The procession's destination was an empty field in an area known as "District Six," at one time a thriving neighborhood of mixed races and believers, much like the group that gathered for the parliament.

But apartheid, the law of South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s, consciously and systematically destroyed this multiracial, multifaith community and many other diverse communities. The government brutally bulldozed the homes, forcing people who lived here to relocate to assigned townships. Apartheid did away with almost in Six, except memory.

Memory brought the pilgrimage to this place, where representatives from various spiritual traditions offered prayers. One of them was recently retired Bishop Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia of the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico, who has frequently mediated problems in his own area between the government and the Mayan Zapatista people.

For the next six days a myriad of programs, symposia, performances, lectures, workshops, seminars, artistic performances, and exhibits filled the schedule.

As often happens on pilgrimages, I fell into good company: the group of students and alums from Lake Forest College in Illinois; their teacher, Ron Miller; and some members of an interfaith organization known as Common Ground. Every evening we would gather at our hotel's bar--our informal meeting place we affectionately called "the office"--and talk about the various workshops and presentations we attended. "The office" became the site of good fellowship and good work.

Noontime artistic performances electrified the atmosphere of the parliament. Rhythms of African drumbeats, the raspy-voiced American folk singer Arlo Guthrie, the melodies of Kido chanting, the songs of gospel music, and the chords of a brass ensemble drew large congregations.

Japanese Taiko drummers performed almost daily. "Don't miss the Taiko drummers," was frequent advice passed from one parliament participant to another.

In the evenings, participants made their way to plenary sessions at the Cape Hope Center. Nelson Mandela's address, amid heightened security precautions, riveted participants.

Mandela told the group he originally had planned to be away during the time of the parliament. He changed his plans, however, because of the important place religion played in his own formal education, in the struggle against apartheid, and in keeping the hopes and dreams of political prisoners alive during their long years of incarceration.

After the parliament ended I went to nearby Robben Island where Mandela was imprisoned for many years. His words came back to me as I stood before the cell that was his home for those many years.

An incredibly rich tapestry spun from the varied events emerged by the week's end. The practice of prayer and meditation, the commitment to a global ethic, and the lack of parochial thinking were but some of the repeating designs of the parliament's weave that particularly struck this American Catholic pilgrim.

Prayerful meditation is a crucible held in common by most spiritual traditions that participated in the parliament. Morning prayer or meditation sessions were held each day before the workshops and presentations. Buddhist Kido chanting, Jewish meditation on the Neshamah, circle peace dancing, Jundalini yoga, Baha'i prayers and sacred readings, Zen meditation, and lectio divina holy readings were among the daily offerings.

Another component of the tapestry woven by the parliament was the preferential option for the poor, the disadvantaged, and the outcast. The opening ceremonies remembered not only all who are infected with HIV, but also those who suffered under apartheid, those who continue to suffer from the effects of apartheid, and those who suffer from apartheid-like circumstances.

One did not have to go to presentations to be reminded of the poor in South Africa. Begging on the streets of Cape Town is akin to almost any major American city, except for one striking difference: the presence of so many children begging.

The embrace of the parliament's global consciousness is immensely wide and strong. It includes the entire earth and all its people. In its 1993 session in Chicago, the parliament adopted "Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration," a document that identifies several ethical principles held in common by the world's religious and spiritual traditions and applies them to some contemporary critical issues.

Following up on this, the 1999 parliament issued a "Call to Our Guiding Institutions," inviting religions, governments, agriculture, labor, industry and commerce, education, arts, communications media, science, medicine, international intergovernmental organizations, and organizations of civil society to "reflect on and to redefine their roles at the threshold of a new century." Participants were urged to consider "gifts of service to the world" that would incarnate the values of the global ethic.

With such a global vision and broad embrace, it isn't surprising that parochial discussions and divisions became so unimportant. Seemingly endless conversations and controversies within Catholicism about whether to kneel or stand at certain moments in the Eucharist, whether a certain text is officially approved, and who may use the title "chaplain" are not only petty in comparison to the vision of interfaith and interreligious global activity, but oddly irrelevant.

I came away from the parliament thinking that religious and spiritual traditions work hard to bring salvation and redemption to their adherents, but who brings salvation and redemption to the institutions of religious and spiritual traditions? Can these organizations redeem themselves?

I don't think so.

But it occurred to me that religious and spiritual traditions can extend salvation and redemption to each other by keeping each other focused on the incredibly important task of redeeming and repairing the world. In short, by calling each other to integrity, each religious and spiritual tradition performs a great service to other traditions.

I, like so many other pilgrims, look forward to the 2004 Parliament of the World's Religions. Until then, the 1999 parliament will continue to echo its hopeful messages for a world willing to hear.

FRANKLIN MCMAHON is an artist in Lake Forest, Illinois. PETER GILMOUR, "Odds and Ends" columnist for U.S. CATHOLIC, teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago.